流光之翼的唱片世界

ben heppner

wanger

DG 2006

本·海普纳 :  瓦格纳----指环精选

        加拿大男高音本·赫普纳（Ben Heppner）属于实力型演唱家。他的演唱奔放，用声用情而富煽动性。之前，由于“三大男高音”等录音版本太多，中国声乐爱好者很少见到他的录音。

       环球DG的这款《瓦格纳：指环精选》的出现，为我们认识这位男高音打开了一道天窗。赫普纳敢于在这款专辑选录瓦格纳伟大的史诗性歌剧巨作——《尼伯龙根的指环》中的著名唱段，并汇集成“高难演录集锦”，正说明他具有雄厚的演唱实力。

        此款专辑中，包括《指环》的第一夜《女武神》、第二夜《齐格弗里德》和第三夜《诸神的黄昏》中的著名选段。唱片开始，便是《女武神》中男主角齐格蒙德的唱段“我父亲答应给我一把剑”。赫普纳的“英雄男高音”一下子便显露了威力，加之他明朗清晰的发音，色调变化丰富以及超强的控制力，展示出他歌唱的力度与抒情的极好统一性。《齐格弗里德》中齐格弗里德的那个最著名唱段“诺顿克，诺顿克！期望之剑”，赫普纳的演唱也是荡气回肠，张力十足。

        该碟由彼得·施奈德（Peter Schneider）指挥德累斯顿国家管弦乐团演录，他于1992年起担任德累斯登国家管弦乐团首席指挥，风格纯正，技术娴熟，与演唱者、乐团的合作默契老到，极耐寻味。

Tackling Wagner's Ring


Ben Heppner sings Siegmund and Siegfried

Ben Heppner is regularly hailed as today's finest Wagnerian tenor. Audiences all over the world have been moved by his performances in Die Meistersinger, Lohengrin,Der fliegende Holländer and, more recently, by his passionate Tristan. But until now, he has not confronted the ultimate challenge that awaits all Wagner singers, Der Ring des Nibelungen. So it's particularly exciting for music-lovers, and for Heppner himself, that he has just recorded some of the Ring's plum tenor scenes, singing the roles of Siegmund and Siegfried with a view to the future - in 2008 at Aix-en-Provence, he will undertake the young Siegfried on stage for the first time.

Heppner says the timing is perfect. "If I'd tried to record it earlier, when I wasn't yet intending to sing the Ring, it wouldn't have been right. Although I have a distance to go yet, it's good that I've been able to crack the book open and get some of these pieces prepared."

His career and the development of his voice have been leading him towards the Ring for many years. "There was a time about 17 years ago, as we were moving from lyric tenor to 'spinto', that my teacher began to hear that the Germanic repertoire would be right for me. We started to make a transition into the Wagner Fach - jugendliche Helden (lyric-heroic roles) - and indeed that's still where I am, though I make a living in the Heldentenor roles as well. Starting to work on Siegfried was an important transition, because I'd always avoided the Ring up to this point."

There were several reasons for his caution, as Heppner explains, not least that anyone who succeeds as Siegfried will find himself constantly being offered Ring cycles, sometimes to the exclusion of other roles. "But the most important reason is that it takes time, and vocal maturity, to master Siegfried. When James Levine and I talked about this in the past, he said to me: 'You could certainly do Siegfried in Götterdämmerung right now, and it would be a good choice. But I'm not sure about the young Siegfried.' He was referring to the sheer physical stamina that's needed to sing that role."

As we can hear on this disc, Ben Heppner has no problem with vocal stamina - it's a fantastic achievement for him and a delight for us to have Siegfried's best-known scenes recorded by this clear, powerful, still youthful tenor. It may seem paradoxical but Heppner, who has already made over 16 complete opera sets, says recording an opera can be as taxing as performing it live. "If you make a mistake on stage, you don't have another chance to do it that night. Once a problem goes by, it's over. But the audience is more aware of the drama going on than listening for musical perfection. On a record, of course, you have to go over it again."

Deciding on the material he would record cannot have been easy. "There are not that many excerptable arias from the four operas, but our concept was to track Siegfried's life, beginning with his father, Siegmund, through his own youth, maturity and death." Two contrasting pieces stand out in the selection, showing Wagner's complete mastery of mood and character. Siegmund's "Winterstürme" (Winter storms) aria in Die Walküre brings out the poet and visionary in this hero. Ben Heppner is full of admiration for the writing. "In 'Winterstürme', Siegmund expresses his love with such beautiful and refined turns of phrase, in such wonderful lines. It feels more like chamber music than like big, full-blown Wagner."

Siegfried's Schmelzlied (Forging Song), on the other hand, captures the swagger and fearlessness of the energetic teenager of the next work in the tetralogy. "At this stage, I feel that Siegfried is still a two-dimensional hero, like an action figure. His journey leads him to find that other dimension and to flesh out the character. He begins to forge the sword, full of excitement, without imagining he could possibly fail. But even during this scene he's starting to grow, and to realize that Mime is not exactly on his side. It's a wonderful show of bravura and youth and vigour."

Heppner is delighted to be working with conductor Peter Schneider, a Bayreuth Festival veteran of many years standing, and with the venerable Staatskapelle of Dresden, in the city which nurtured the young Wagner but then rejected him for his revolutionary views. "Peter Schneider is a wonderful Wagner expert, and I am very grateful that he's been guiding me through this project."

How does Heppner feel about recording the disc before having performed these works in the opera house? "Ideally I would like to have sung them on stage ten or fifteen times before the recording. But I've worked hard at learning these sections and hope this disc will whet everybody's appetite for the live Ring starting in 2008."

There can be no doubt that it will, but a recording like this, which captures Ben Heppner at the height of his powers, is of course a treasure in its own right.

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http://boxstr.com/files/4102277_9octb/02%20Winterstuerme%20wichen%20dem%20Wonnemond.mp3